{"id":580523,"date":"2026-05-21T19:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T19:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/580523\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T19:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T19:30:14","slug":"james-reimer-backbone-backup-behind-senators-successful-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/580523\/","title":{"rendered":"James Reimer: Backbone Backup Behind Senators\u2019 Successful Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s funny how hockey works sometimes. A guy comes in quietly, no fanfare, no long-term expectations, and suddenly he\u2019s part of the reason a team feels a lot more solid than anyone predicted. That\u2019s been the story of James Reimer with the Ottawa Senators last season. He wasn\u2019t the starter, and he wasn\u2019t the headline. But absolutely one of those steady hands that helped keep everything from wobbling when things got a little messy. <\/p>\n

Reimer is uniquely experienced as an NHL backup goalie. <\/p>\n

Reimer didn\u2019t get the glamorous workload \u2014 far from it. He sat behind a true No. 1 in Linus Ullmark and still found a way to matter every time his name got called. And that\u2019s the part people miss. Backup goalies don\u2019t just \u201cfill in.\u201d In a long NHL season, they hold entire stretches together. They take the tough starts, the back-to-backs, the random nights where momentum is fragile and nobody is fully locked in. And Reimer handled those moments like a pro who\u2019s seen everything the league can throw at him \u2014 because he has. <\/p>\n

What really stood out was how steady he made Ottawa look during key windows of the season. You\u2019re talking about a guy who posted a 2.42-ish goals-against mark in stretches<\/a>, made critical starts in tight playoff-push style games, and even stepped in late in games when things were slipping. There were nights when Ottawa didn\u2019t look like they had their best legs, but Reimer gave them structure. Gave them a chance. That doesn\u2019t show up in highlight reels, but it absolutely shows up in standings points over time. <\/p>\n

Reimer brings 15 NHL seasons to his craft. <\/p>\n

And there\u2019s something to be said for presence, too. Not just saves, but calm. Younger teams feed off that. You can see it in how Ottawa played in front of him. He helps a young team become a little more settled, a little less chaotic when he is in the net. That\u2019s veteran value. That kind of contribution isn\u2019t loud or flashy, but it\u2019s stabilizing. You only fully appreciate it when it\u2019s gone. <\/p>\n

The surprise here isn\u2019t that Reimer can still play. He\u2019s done that for a long time. The surprise is how effectively he slid into a pressure environment and made it look normal. In a season where Ottawa pushed to stay competitive, he wasn\u2019t the storyline \u2014 but he was part of the reason they could have one. And for a veteran goalie at this stage of his career, that\u2019s a different kind of respect. Not fame. Not headlines. Just trust.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope he gets another season, if he wants it, in the NHL. From what we saw last season, he deserves it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s funny how hockey works sometimes. A guy comes in quietly, no fanfare, no long-term expectations, and suddenly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5104],"tags":[5,4,72,25,5157,73],"class_list":["post-580523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa-senators","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-ottawasenators","tag-senators"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116614229127020685","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}